Most of the great sportscar drivers have tasted success in the Le Mans 24 Hours, but such is the nature and challenge of the event that there are some notable absentees from the winners list. So who were the best losers?

To decide on our top six, we looked at a number of factors. The key ones were how well the drivers got on at Le Mans, the circumstances of their failures, and the amount of success scored elsewhere.

And before you cry foul on the absence of Anthony Davidson, Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima after their dramatic late Toyota failure in 2016, we have excluded current drivers.